


How Beautiful Your Branches

by st_aurafina



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Bad Santa, Deconstructing Christmas, F/F, Show-typical grumpiness, The dubious whimsy of Christmas lights
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28145262
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: Root really hates Christmas, but with Shaw she doesn't have to be grumpy alone.
Relationships: Root | Samantha Groves/Sameen Shaw
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57
Collections: POI Advent 2020





	How Beautiful Your Branches

Shaw is drifting pleasantly between sleep and waking when she hears the lock on the door turn. It's Root, of course. Root has had a key for months, not that Shaw ever gave her one. Shaw never likes to make things easy. 

She curls deeper into her blankets, determined not to react when she hears whatever flirtatious greeting Root has for her. 

What she hears what sounds like a giant toilet brush being pulled through her doorway, scratching and rustling and twanging. She's out of bed in a moment, gun in one hand, flashlight in the other but there's no giant toilet brush. It's just Root in a perky Christmas elf costume, hauling a huge-ass tree through a doorway too narrow for it. 

By the time Shaw's mind has caught up with her reflexes, she can recognise the piney scent from the broken branches that did not survive the journey. Root throw her whole tiny bodyweight into moving the tree, leans forward on an angle like she's climbing a mountain, but the thing sticks three-quarters of the way through. Root gives up with a little sigh and collapses to sit cross-legged on the floor. 

"The fuck is this?" Shaw says. The tree is massive. Even if Root had managed to drag it into Shaw's loft, the branches would fill most of the space. There are electrical cables trailing behind the tree, and a bedraggled banner that reads "Santa Photos $10.99!"

Root looks up at her, her face miserable under the peaked green hat. "I stole Christmas," she says, and waves a hand at the supine tree. There's a faint jingling every time she moves, thanks to the bells on her cuffs and the tip of her hat. "It's officially cancelled." 

Shaw wants to roll her eyes and poke Root with her foot, but they've come a long way in relationship negotiation. (That phrase makes her want to roll her eyes, too, but this is the longest she's been in any kind of relationship, so it must be doing something.) She flops down next to Root, with the spiny branches pressing into her back and waits for Root to tell her what's up. 

What's up is a misery of a story, with a mall Santa who likes to photograph kids in his leisure time, and sell the photos on some secret internet hub.

"Did you blow his head off?" Shaw asks. "I would have." 

"Harold was there," Root says. "So, he's upside down in the mall garbage chute. Santa is, I mean. Not Harold." She gazes off into the distance, and Shaw knows she's picturing Harold's bespoke shoes poking out of a hatch. 

She elbows Root in the side. "Well, you and Harold can destroy their dark web lair or whatever, can't you?" 

"I'm going to," says Root. "But Harold is busy stopping John from flying to Bratislava to blow the head off the guy who runs the site." She leans her head on Shaw's shoulder. "Christmas is nothing but cheap glitter and disappointment, you know?" 

Shaw shrugs. "You don't have to tell me. That's how I feel about most things." 

Root sighs and lets her head flop down on her folded arms with a jingle. "I'm going to wash this elf right out of my hair. Then hopefully I will feel up to wreaking cyber-vengeance on those assholes." She gets up, jingles her way to Shaw's utilitarian bathroom and closes the door. 

Shaw glances at the tree, lying half in and out of her place, and then at the closed bathroom door. "What am I supposed to do about this?" she asks. 

There's no answer, so Shaw goes to find her axe. 

It takes Root a long time to come out of the bathroom, and by that time, Shaw has properly butchered the tree. There's a pile of logs in one corner – Shaw doesn't have a fireplace, but that's never stopped her from lighting a fire – and a neatly swept pile of sawdust in the other. 

When Root finally emerges, she's wrapped in Shaw's only towel, and her knobbly knees poke out from the tattered edge. She wrings out her hair and tries to dry it without losing her coverage. "You need more towels, Sameen. This one is getting thin." 

"Wouldn't want to give the impression I was settling down," Shaw says. She carefully hangs the axe in its designated position on the pegboard, with the bandsaw and her set of machetes. 

Root blinks, then finally notices the devastation. "Oh, Sameen. I stole Christmas but you deconstructed it." 

Shaw picks up the box of glass ornaments. "It was getting in the way," she says. "I'm going for takeout, you want something?" 

Root is rummaging in Shaw's clean laundry for something to wear. "That would be great. I am starving," she says. She shimmies into a faded Steelers t-shirt that is far too short to cover anything decently, then she sits on Shaw's bed and opens the laptop she keeps here. "I'm going to get to work." 

By the time Shaw is back with food, Root has her opening salvos running on the laptop. She's woven the Christmas lights all around Shaw's fold-out bed. They blink on and off in an irregular pattern. 

"No," says Shaw. She drops the takeout cartons by the bed and picks up the power cord for the lights. "This is not some adolescent dorm room. There is no whimsy here." She follows the cord all the way to the outlet, where some wi-fi enabled doohickie is plugged in, controlling the display. "Is this…?" Shaw waves her finger in the air, their agreed signal for the Machine. 

"She likes them," says Root. "I told her you wouldn't mind a little whimsy, for her sake." 

The lights all blink once, off then on. Shaw decides it's enough like a salute for her to tolerate them. She pushes Root further along the bed. 

"Make some room," she says. "I've got some serious eating to do." 

Root laughs and kisses Shaw's temple. "You make Christmas tolerable," she says. "And that's high praise." 

"Shut up and eat," says Shaw, and passes her a box of noodles.


End file.
